Clayton Neighborhood Target of Preservation Efforts

An effort to extend rules preventing the construction of multi-family and business buildings in most of 's Wydown Forest is in its final weeks.

The neighborhood is located just north of Wydown Boulevard and borders on parts of Hanley Road and Forest Park Parkway. It has roughly 176 homeowners, said Missy McCormick, treasurer of the Wydown Forest Neighborhood Association.

The petition drive is underway because four indenture provisions are scheduled to expire Jan. 1. The provisions—outlined in a Nov. 10, 1981 Indenture of Restrictions document—regulate the number of buildings allowed per lot, the types of fences permitted, the composition of single-family houses and compliance with city building code, among other issues.

Business structures only are permitted on five lots, and "no land within the subdivision shall be used for manufacture of any description, or as a hospital or charitable institution or place of public resort," the document states.

A proposed amendment would extend those provisions to Jan. 1, 2037. The provisions then would be renewed for 50-year periods unless owners of three fourths "of the total number of front feet in the subdivision consent to the termination of such restrictions."

McCormick picked up the effort to collect notarized signatures for the extension after trustees hired a lawyer more than a year ago to draft an indenture amendment.

She needed 22 more signatures as of Monday afternoon and expressed optimism that she would reach that goal in the next several days. McCormick has been arranging meetings with homeowners and walking door-to-door with her neighbor, who is a notary.

The amendment will pass if 75 percent or more of the neighborhood's landholders support it.

"Basically, it's overwhelmingly positive support on this," McCormick said. Only two people have told her they don't want to sign.

Wydown Forest is a neighborhood of smaller starter homes, she said. While the economy might not be favorable for a developer to tear down a single-family home and turn it into a multi-family building or business, it is conducive for purchasing such a property in anticipation of future development.

The extension of the indentures rules would help prevent that kind of situation.

"For me, it's the integrity of the neighborhood," McCormick said.